


Desert Glass

by SpiralSpace



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fat Shaming, I think she's trying to psych me out, I told Catra that she could swear but she didn't, Multi, POV Catra (She-Ra), POV Third Person, Poly Boardgamers, Swearing, The Impending Threat Of Global Destruction, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 12:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19768390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiralSpace/pseuds/SpiralSpace
Summary: Catra and Adora have known each other through long and difficult times, and what they have forged together is a piece of desert glass, hard and sanded by the winds. But they have other people in their lives now, and navigating the waterline between a relationship that's more scar than heart and one that's more heart than scar is an unenviable task.Glimmer-Adora-Catra-Entrapta in a linear polycule. Catra-centric.





	1. Eurogames

“Welp, I’ve got to get to bed.” Bo looked at his watch. “So I guess this is goodbye, ladies. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He made finger guns at Glimmer and Adora. “Oh, except for Catra who I guess I will see oooooooon… Thursday?” He made finger guns at Catra too. “See you then!”

Glimmer waved back. “Bye!”

He shut the door behind him. Catra saw Glimmer scooch along the couch a bit, leaning in and brushing her face against Adora’s neck. 

“Wow,” Catra remarked coldly. “Arrow-boy’s been gone less than ten seconds and you’re already getting right to the snogging."

Glimmer looked up at her. “It’s Bow,” she said.

“Fine, bow-boy, whatever. Potato, potahto. Doesn’t change the fact that two PDA goblins are trying to break the land speed record right in front of me.”

Adora smiled at her. “You’re free to join us, you know.”

Catra looked around the room cautiously, as if checking for witnesses, and got out of her armchair, plonking herself down on Adora’s other side. Adora worked her free hand out from behind the couch cushion and started rubbing between Catra’s ears. She crossed her arms.

“Wait, why does bow-boy think he’s going to see me on Thursday?”

“Oh right, you were in the bathroom for that. Next game night’s on Thursday,” Glimmer said, already feeling sleepy from the warmth of Adora’s body.

“How have we already set up another game night? This one isn’t even over yet.”

“Yeah I just think it’s time to start making these a scheduled thing. Like, sometimes I literally end up spending more time trying to figure out how to get all of us in a room for a few hours than I do on rebellion logistics for the week, total. It’s really out of hand. So for now they’re on Thursdays, and that’ll work or it won’t.”

“But Entrapta can’t make Thursday.”

“What, again?” Adora asked.

“She can’t make ANY Thursday! She has work, that’s an every week thing, not that I’d expect the PRINCESSES to understand.”

Glimmer rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Look, maybe we can… I dunno, find something else to do on the regular, the four of us. I mean, it’s not the end of the world if she’s not at this one particular boardgame night, right?”

"Hm"

“It was a nice change though, wasn’t it?” Adora added.

Catra’s nails extended reflexively. Adora didn’t seem to notice, she just kept rubbing Catra’s head. “Without Entrapta, you mean?” the catgirl asked, as levelly as she could manage.

“I mean that it was fun not spending the entire time just getting through a rules explanation. It was nice to play something normal for once.”

“Entrapta doesn’t force us to play those games, though. It’s a vote! The rest of us vote for her games because we –LIKE THEM-.”

“Bow votes for her games because he feels bad for her, and you vote for them because you’re dating her.”

Catra laughed. “No, see, the thing about bow-guy is that I’ve met him like twice-”

“Twelve times,” Glimmer sighed, definitely not feeling cuddly any more.

“-but it’s so, so obvious, whether you want to admit it or not, that he is just as much of a nerd as Entrapta is. He’s in it for the math and the fancy miniatures, and he has a fantastic time. And not your weird projected pity complex.”

“Look, Catra…” Glimmer interrupted. “This wasn’t about excluding Entrapta, or trying to change what kinds of games get played. I just needed to pick a day.”

“Right, suuuuuure. And if it was Adora who was getting locked out, you’re telling me we’d still be talking about sticking with Thursday?”

“That! That’s different.” Glimmer’s voice was sharp, but there was some uncertainty wavering underneath, which was a good sign. “It wouldn’t make sense to have it without Adora, because we’re all kind of here for her.” 

“Except for Entrapta. Which is really what this is about, isn’t it!?”

Glimmer didn’t have anything to say to that.

Adora did, though.

“Oh my god, that is such bullshit, Catra,” she said, in the same tone she’d use if her ex-Horde girlfriend had just lied about the weather. “So if Bow does it because he’s a nerd, is that your excuse too?” She turned to look at Glimmer, her hand still on Catra’s scalp as if this were just another one of their usual everyday spats. Catra was actually a little mortified that Adora couldn’t see how furious she was. Mostly that just made her even more angry. “This is the same Catra,” she said to Glimmer, “who, when I rescued her from the Fright Zone-“

“You ACCOMPANIED! Me out of the Fright Zone!” Catra snapped. 

“You couldn’t walk on your own, it was a Res-Cueee!” Adora shot back, her voice gregarious and singsong. “Anyway,” Adora says, “she’s barely conscious, staggering along, and the first words she says to me? ‘No. More. Paperwork.’ She sounded like she’d found god in that moment.” Adora turned back to Catra. “So you’re telling me Catra, THAT Catra, is secretly an ultra-nerd who wants to spend her time consulting reference tables to figure out the month-to-month weather patterns of a small imaginary nation?”

“Yes!” Catra said. Really, she didn’t find it very exciting. She kind of did just vote for Entrapta’s games because Entrapta liked playing them. But they still weren’t any more boring than the stuff Glimmer and Adora always wanted to play.

“Think about it, Catra,” Adora continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “Just think about it for a second. If Entrapta’s not going to be there, we could play Werebear! Just like the old days!” She grinned mischeviously. “We both know how much you miss beating people at Werebear.” She did like Wearbear. The deceit. The drama. The death. Entrapta didn’t though. At first she had thought that Entrapta was losing games on purpose, to get it over with faster. But that would have been her style, not Entrapta’s. The inventor just hadn’t found it engaging at all.

“Does that include the part where you start handing out my tells to everyone like cheap Haunts’ Eve candy?” she asked bitterly.

Adora tilted her chin upward, as if reminiscing into an invisible starry sky. “Just like the old days…” she said wistfully.

“Adora-“ Catra retorted.

“You’re right, Catra,” Glimmer said, quietly. And yet, that particular sequence of words was unsurprisingly enough to shut Catra up entirely. Glimmer was getting weepy at this point, maybe she even looked a bit contrite. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on Catra’s part. “The whole point of boardgame nights was that everyone gets to hang out together, and that means everyone! We’ll change it, I can find a better day if I try hard enough.”

Adora looked startled. “Glimmer, you shouldn’t let her push you around like-“

“It’s fine,” Catra interrupted.

“Are- are you sure? Because I really can-“

“It’s fine,” Catra repeated, outwardly aloof. “Don’t make me nauseous with that goodie-goodie talk. It’s just another board game night, like you said. I’ll figure something out.”

Catra was already peeling off mentally into her own little distant galaxy. She knew what jerkitude smelled like. How could an an artisan like herself not recognize it, after all? And this whole thing reeked, even if she couldn’t quite put into words why. But today it wasn’t Catra who was being the asshole, it was Adora, and for some reason she couldn’t see that! So Catra would just have to figure out a way to MAKE her see.

Catra grinned. She could already feel a plan coming together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glimmer has taken on that most sacred of responsibilities; coordinating the polycule's boardgame night. And as in most things, she conducts herself with heroism and dedication.
> 
> This story isn't really about her though, except in the equally true sense in which it is.


	2. Up A Tree

Catra watched as the day moon crept higher in the morning sky over the Whispering Woods, lighting each treetop in turn as it neared her perch among the upper boughs. She’d never realized it before, but the woods were really beautiful. She was definitely starting to get chilly, though.

She-Ra’s boots landed on the branch next to her with a heavy thud. “Catra,” she asked, “did you call my girlfriend a lardball?”

She’d intended to call her a good deal more than that. But Glimmer’s reflexes had been excellent, and Catra had found herself relocated before she could blink. Apparently Adora’s other girlfriend wasn’t in the mood to put up with much of her shit today. An unexpected development, to be sure, though not necessarily an unfortunate one. “She’s a princess, and also somehow the leader of the strongest rebellion on Etheria. Pretty sure she can handle a little heckling,” she said flippantly.

“Catra, this is serious! Glimmer’s bawling her eyes out in Bright Moon right now!

Catra’s face lit up like a child’s on Winterfeast morning.

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” She-Ra said.

Catra ignored the non-question. “It doesn’t feel very good, does it? Finding out someone’s messing with the people you care about.”

Adora’s eyes widened. “Did you seriously do that to her just to try and make me mad? Is that what you’re saying right now???”

“Basically, yeah. I didn’t just try, though.”

“I’m not mad.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Oh please. You’re lucky if you have any teeth left, clenching your jaw like that.”

“Okay, yeah, I’m angry. Of course I’m angry. You win, Catra, is that what you wanted?”

“I dunno, seems pretty hypocritical to be mad, considering what you’re like about Entrapta.”

“Wh- no? It doesn’t?! Entrapta and I don’t talk, and I barely talk –about- her either, so no, I don’t really think that’s a reasonable comparison. And in what universe is that an excuse for you to bully Glimmer?!” Adora was, by this point, scaring the birds. Catra could tell there wouldn’t be any getting through to her today. There probably wasn't any sense belabouring the point.

Adora sighed, and made herself take a moment to breathe. “Look, maybe I was unclear, maybe that’s on me. The way you are to other people is awful, and in my case I tolerate it because I understand that it’s just part of the full Catra package. But Glimmer never signed up for the full Catra package. This thing we do, our… routine” she gestured emphatically between the two of them, “is exceptional, and if we’re going to keep being like this it’s absolutely not okay for us to let that spill over into other people’s lives. Does that make sense?”

Catra clapped her hands together, the picture of affability. “Message received, makes sense! _I’ll hold you to it,_ ” she whispered. “Now, I dunno about you but I’m starting to get a bit chilly. Hey, while you’ve got all that extra tallness, how about giving me a piggyback ride down?” She held her arms up.

“No, I’m definitely not rewarding you for a stunt like this.” She sighed. “But I’m not going to leave you up here either.” With She-Ra’s height, she easily stepped down to the next branch, and held out her hand for her girlfriend.

“Hey, I can get down from here on my own if I have to.”

Adora looked around, at the sea of treetops surrounding them. “Well, in that case, fine, go right ahead.”

Catra stared at her for a second, then grumbled and took her hand. 

“So where’d Glimmer put me, anyway?” Catra asked, as they worked their way down the great old tree.

“Not too far from Bright Moon, actually. A little ways north, northeast maybe? It’s near Mirror Lake, if you know where that is.”

“Nope. Don’t do water.”

“Yeah, I don’t really get it either. Lakes smell gross, and there’s sun everywhere else anyway. But hey, what do we know because apparently it’s like a hot vacation destination or something.”

“Guess it goes to sho-whoaWhoaWHOA!” Catra startled as she slipped on a damp piece of bark, plummeting off the branch. 

She-Ra’s bracered hand caught hers right before she slipped out of reach. Catra grinned up at her. She grinned back reflexively, but then her expression soured again. “Look, Catra, while I’ve got your attention, let me be clear one last time today. If you ever harass Glimmer again, you will know consequences for once in your miserable life. Got it?” Catra nodded. 

Adora suddenly let go of her hand. Catra felt her stomach move up to her lungs as she dropped.

She didn’t even have time to make a sound before her feet landed safely in the grass, a few inches below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A princess who's always been a princess, a princess who used to be a horde soldier, a horde soldier who's always been a horde soldier and a horde soldier who used to be a princess walk into a bar.
> 
> The bar says "You're becoming your mother."


	3. Unmasked

“Hey, Entrapta?” Catra asked, scrubbing the dishes as she talked.

“Yes, my honeycrunch?” Entrapta was on the couch, playing video games.

“What do you think about Adora?”

“Princess Adora. Aged nineteen years, birthday on January 19th. Height, N/A. Land holdings and additional titles, N/A. Runestone; the runestone of Protection. Runestone abilities, understudied. Speculated runestone purpose; administration and/or security. Adora is your current girlfriend, which makes her my step-girlfriend. Or something. Nobody seems to know what the right word for that is.”

“There isn’t one. Yet, anyway.”

“And she never returned my questionnaires so that’s about all I’ve got. I’m confused actually. People keep calling her She-Ra too? What’s her name?”

“They both are. But I mean, how do you feel about Adora?”

“Oh. Oh! Well, she seems nice. Very tall sometimes, reliable, hard to distract.” She paused.

Catra picked up on her hesitance. “And?” she asked, setting a dish back into the soap.

“I- I shouldn’t talk badly about people,” she stammered, quietly.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But I do want to hear it.”

“Well,” Entrapta said. She paused the game and put the controller down on the couch, though her hair took it up and unpaused it as soon as she turned to talk to Catra. “Sometimes I worry that I’d find her frustrating? You know, if she talked to me. Maybe I already do, I dunno.”

“Frustrating?” Catra asked, more curious than anything else.

“So she’s got the runestone of protection, right? I don’t even know what it does but so far the answer kiiiinda seems to be ‘everything’. Gimme a few hours with that thing and I’d bet dollars to donuts I could blow up the whole world if I wanted to, not that I do. And she doesn’t even want to know more about it. She’s perfectly content to just wave it around like a two by four and not ask where it came from, or how it works, or what it can do. I don’t know how she can stand to live like that!”

Catra quirked an eyebrow. “Yeah, Adora’s never really been an inquisitive person.”

“And she wasn’t curious about me either,” Entrapta continued, sadly. “I’m kinda hurt, I guess? It’s hard not to take it personally that we know we’re gonna be in each other’s lives and she still doesn’t want to know anything about me. Maybe it’s because I made such a bad first impression? You know, with all the rogue androids running around and everything. But she wasn’t even awake for most of that! She didn’t say anything about it to you, did she?”

“She hasn’t said anything at all about it, actually. I don’t even know for sure that she doesn’t like you. Maybe you should tell her how you feel?”

“Hah! What would be the point of that? It’s not like I can just make her care. Other people don’t change, Catra. They’re not like us.”

“Yeah I feel like people really miss out on how much effort you put into making them comfortable.” Catra paused. “…Wait, what do you mean by ‘us’”?

“Well, you're really very talented at changing the way you present yourself. You switch masks, is I guess how I’d say it. The person you are when you’re playing Werebear is completely different from you-when-you’re-shoplifting, just as an example. I’ve been meaning to try and document them all some time, make some kind of index. You may not try to be the person **_other_** people want you to be, but I can always know you’ll adapt to get what you need out of life. It's impressive! Plus you always make sense, which is nice. Really nice, actually.”

That was enough to set Catra blushing. Sometimes when she was with Entrapta she worried her face was going to catch on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *"Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls intensifies*


	4. Knocking

Catra knocked firmly on the thick varnished wood of Adora’s bedroom door. Her palms were sweaty, so she wiped them on her shirt. She always felt out of place in Bright Moon Castle. She thought it had less to do with how fancy it was and more to do with how long she’d spent trying to burn the place to the ground. Her claws clicked restlessly on the hard marble floor.

Adora opened the door partway. “Catra? You actually knocked, is everything alright?” she asked, concerned.

“Yeah, yeah everything’s fine. Listen, can we talk?”

Adora rolled her eyes. “Oh, do you want to discuss things like adults this time?”

Catra looking fixedly at the ground. “Yes,” she replied, eventually.

Adora was genuinely taken aback. She actually paled a bit. “O-Okay. In that case, I guess you should come in.” She opened the door fully. “Take a seat wherever.” She sat down on the edge of her bed. Catra hopped up on the dresser, opposite side. “So. What did you want to talk about?”

“It’s about Entrapta,” Catra said.

Catra paused. Adora waited. “Go on,” she said, hesitantly.

“Look, I know I can’t make you like her,” Catra said, “but it’s really hard for me when you treat her like that.”

“Like… what?”

“Like,” Catra gestured emphatically, “THAT. A jerk.”

“Wh- I Don’t-“ Adora stopped herself. She wove her fingers together and took a deep breath. “Could you please tell me how you feel that I’m mistreating Entrapta?” she asked, calmly.

“It’s not about what you do, it’s…” Catra couldn’t figure out what to say. “Yesterday you said that the way we treat each other is different,” she eventually observed. “We don’t really prop each other up very often. And that’s fine. Because I have it coming, and you’ve got the rest of the world telling you how great you are all the time. But man, I didn’t even know what it felt like for someone to like you for who you were until I met Entrapta! And lemme tell ya Adora, you were holding out.” She smiled sadly, looking at a memory. “But Entrapta doesn’t get to feel that all that often either. We have that in common, I guess. There’s a whole world of people who don’t know her and they already don’t like her, and when I know she’s going to go through the rest of her life dealing with that, I don’t want to just stand by and let it happen, not even when it’s you. Because, unlike me, she didn’t do anything to deserve it, did she?”

“Catra,” Adora said, as kindly as she could manage, “she almost destroyed the world.”

“Because I made her do it! If you’re going to be angry at anyone about that, it should be me! And normally you’re all forgiveness and second chances, so why not with Entrapta? Normally getting to know people and harnessing the power of friendship is totally your jam, so why not when it’s her!? Did you run out of space in your magical princess rainbow?!? I don’t think it has anything to do with what she did. It feels like you’re actually just judging her the on the same irrelevant bullshit the world does!”

“I mean, if I thought I was being unreasonable, I would have done something else.” Adora sighed. She took a moment. She reached a decision. “I think I know who Entrapta really is. But you think I’m wrong, and she means a lot to you, so what if I just try to keep a more open mind about Entrapta, and we’ll see how that goes? Do you think that would that be enough for now?”

“I mean, it’s more than I expected. Sure, I’ll take it.” Catra instantly felt a lot better about everything. Maybe it would seem like a small change to her later but right then it seemed huge. She smiled. “And hey who knows, maybe you’ll even like her! Or at least find new reasons not to.”

“So….. How is Entrapta? Is she seeing anyone else right now?”

“No? Pretty sure her thing with Emily is platonic. Maybe. Probably.”

“Wait, Emily? Who’s Emily??”

Catra looked at her like she was dumb. “Emily, her robot. Entrapta keeps muttering about how she’s ‘this close to solving the three body problem’ but knowing her she might just be talking about corpse disposal. I should probably ask her…”

Suddenly, the door burst open. “Hey guys!” Entrapta yelled, sweaty and out of breath.

“Entrapta! Is something wrong?” Adora asked, clearly concerned.

“Nooooo, I’m just running for the various cardiovascular benefits!” she replied, her voice heavy with irony. “AM I DOING IT RIGHT CATRA?!”

“Yup,” Catra replied, “that’s definitely sarcasm.” She gave a thumbs up.

Entrapta dove past Adora and started trying to stuff herself inside of the room’s various drawers and cabinets. “Nope, nope… perfect!” she exclaimed as she wedged herself behind Adora’s bedframe.

“Are you in trouble?” Adora asked again, concerned.

“I’m not here!” Entrapta said as she finished concealing the rest of her body from sight.

“What was that about?” Adora asked Catra.

“Let’s see… what was it… nanobreads? I bet it’s about nanobreads.”

A single lavender tendril emerged from behind the bed. “It’s going to change all food production, forever!” the tendril exclaimed, gesticulating wildly. 

“I thought you weren’t here,” Catra commented dryly. The tendril retracted. 

Immediately, there was a loud knock at the door. Adora moved to open it.

It was Queen Angella, accompanied by no less than four palace guards. “Adora,” she said, “you haven't seen Princess Entrapta recently, have you?”

Catra gave her a pleading look from behind the door. “Uh, N-no! No I haven’t,” Adora replied, sweating bullets.

“If you do see her, be sure to tell me. I need to have a word with her as soon as possible.”

“Will do!” Adora said, before shutting the door on Queen Angella as quickly as she dared.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Entrapta waited all of 10 seconds before extricating herself. “Oh thank you, noble She-Ra! You saved me possibly as much as an hour of unwanted exercise today!”

Catra smiled. “Yeah, thanks, ‘She-Ra’! Wasn’t sure you had it in you.”

Adora sighed. “This… nanobread. It’s not dangerous, is it? Nobody’s actually in peril?”

Entrapta thought for a few seconds. “Well… I suppose that if I set the scavenging impulse too high, there’s a tiiiiny chance that they could overrun their programming and enter unrestrained multiplication, prompting a so called ‘grain goo scenario.’ But it’s like they say, you can’t assemble a manifold gluten-lattice and revolutionize our understanding of the culinary arts without breaking a few eggs, and **_*I*_** forgot to go grocery shopping yesterday!” She made an aside to Catra. “Sorry babe. The grocery drone's almost done, it’ll be the last time, pinky promise. But anyway yeah it’s definitely at least 90% perfectly safe!”

“And if it isn’t," Catra added, "She-Ra will be literally the first to know, so clearly the situation’s under control.”

Adora grumbled. “Well, I guess everything’s just fine then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *"I'm Still Here" by the Goo Goo Dolls intensifies*
> 
> I don't know about you but honestly I'm rooting for all of them.


End file.
